NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Noninvasive mechanical ventilation via a facemask reduces the need to insert a tube to aid breathing -- a procedure called intubation -- in a significant number of patients with acute respiratory failure, with the possible exception of those with pneumonia, according to results of a study.

"The avoidance of intubation and conventional mechanical ventilation could potentially lead to fewer complications and less mortality," Dr. Fernando Garcia Lopez from University Hospital Puerta de Hierro in Madrid told Reuters Health.

In the study, 31 patients with acute respiratory failure received ventilation through a facemask while 33 like-patients were ventilated through insertion of a breathing tube -- the conventional method.

According to the researchers, while all of the patients in the conventional arm were intubated, only 18 patients ventilated via the facemask had to be switched to a breathing tube -- a relative risk reduction of 43 percent.

Moreover, Lopez said there were fewer instances of complications and fewer deaths with facemask ventilation, "although we could not establish it statistically." The in-ICU death rate was 23 percent and 39 percent and the complication rate was 52 percent and 70 percent in the facemask and conventional mechanical ventilation arms, respectively.

"Unexpectedly," Lopez said, patients with acute respiratory failure due to pneumonia did not benefit from facemask-assisted ventilation, but this finding must be confirmed. All of the patients with pneumonia in the facemask arm required intubation.

SOURCE: Chest December 2005.